Editorial Notebook; A Harbinger of New Nocturnal Habits

By PHILIP TAUBMAN

Published: January 19, 1998

I was glad to read the other day that the National Football League has finally done something to accommodate my bedtime. In renewing its contract for Monday-night games with ABC, the N.F.L. agreed to move the kickoff to 8 o'clock on the East Coast. After years of snoozing through the second half, if I got that far, I may once again be able to see a last-second field goal or two.

For a long time I was embarrassed to tell anyone I turn out the lights on most nights by 10 o'clock, but then I began to realize I was not the only one. It is one of the great unnoticed seismic shifts in America, now belatedly discovered by ABC and the N.F.L. -- baby boomers are going to bed earlier and rising earlier.

Mine is not the first generation to find its sleeping habits changing as it grows older, but like so many things associated with postwar kids, the change is likely to ripple across American culture. If ''Monday Night Football'' is starting earlier, the entire evening television schedule may soon follow, with shows like ''Nightline'' and ''Letterman'' beginning at an hour when people like me may still be awake to see them.

The day is coming in a decade or two when all of us who once marveled at our elderly parents' preference for dining at 5 P.M. may be competing for 5:15 reservations. Broadway shows may start at 7 o'clock instead of 8. The last shuttle to Washington may leave at 7:30.

The flip side, of course, is that the day begins earlier. The arrival of children 16 years ago altered my schedule forever. Until that day, I was content not to stir from bed until noon. Then, suddenly, night and day merged into feeding and diaper-changing shifts. Life has never been the same since.

I now find it hard to sleep much past 6 A.M. At first, I found the early morning hours disorienting. Now I savor the time, and find I share it with lots of New Yorkers. Even on chilly winter mornings before dawn, dozens of joggers and walkers are out in Central Park. Other people are heading to work. There is a rare tranquillity about the city at that hour.

Some friends still apologize if they call at 10 A.M. on a Sunday, but not many. The irony, of course, is that the children who changed my circadian rhythms are now teen-agers who will sleep until noon at any opportunity. I knew just how far apart our sleeping habits had drifted when a classmate of one of my sons called the other evening at 9:30, waking me from a sound sleep. She seemed startled by the idea that anyone would go to bed at that hour. The executives at ABC know better. PHILIP TAUBMAN